Simple Food for the Good Life
Author: Helen Nearing
Translator: Kyeong-hee Kong
Publisher: Design House
ISBN : 9788970417271(8970417273)
320 pages.150 * 216 * 21 mm /446g
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| >>>This book is written in Korean only. |
About This Book
This book is a collection of essays and recipes explaining and demonstrating
Helen Nearing's philosophy about food. Nearing is the first to point out that
she does not enjoy cooking in the least. For this reason, she spent as little
time as possible in food preparation. Nevertheless, as thousands of visitors
would testify, the food from her kitchen was wholesome, tasty, and most of all,
nourishing. Her cardinal rule was that food should take no longer to prepare
than to consume. Of course, some dishes required simmering for several hours on
the woodstove, but the active involvement of the cook was still limited to just
a few minutes.
Nearing is very clear about her approach to cooking-she doesn't consider the
process itself a worthwhile activity. She tells us "work is only work if you'd
rather be doing something else. Well, I'd rather be reading (or writing) a good
book, playing good music, building a wall, gardening, swimming, skating,
walking-anything that is more active, more intellectual, or more inspiring." She
states that if a person actually enjoys cooking, that's fine for them, but she
gets little pleasure from it herself. On the other hand, she certainly sees food
as worthwhile. For this reason, she advocates eating food raw, or with as little
cooking as possible. She notes that if you fuss over food and make it too good,
people will be tempted to eat more than they need and get fat, but that nobody
ever got fat on a diet of raw foods-they eat what they need and then stop.
Seasonings and sweeteners also lead to overindulgence, and so she rarely uses
them. Her breads chapter is somewhat unique in that there is hardly a recipe
calling for yeast, and few that are even baked. She suggests eating foods raw
that many have never considered, such as potatoes, oats, or even wheat berries.
Though much of her advice is profound, she does make one suggestion that makes
me pause. She notes that she and Scott were not in the habit of supplementing
their food with beverages, not even water, and that a single glass of water
could last a week for them. Odd. Nevertheless, it's hard to argue with someone
about their diet when both she and her husband lived healthy and active lives
into their late nineties. --Erika Mitchell
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